Edith Frances LOUDWELL [1901-1965]

Edith Loudwell was a BCMS missionary who served in China in the years leading up to WWII.  She was born in 1901 in Limehouse, London, to Thomas and Gertrude Loudwell, and she had a younger brother Victor.  Thomas Loudwell was a messenger and later a Commercial Clerk with British Petroleum.

In 1911 the census found them living in a small yellow-brick Victorian terrace in Matcham Road, Leytonstone.  Edith was 9 and Victor 6.

In the census of 1921, they were still in Matcham Road and Edith, 19, was a clerk with J R Roberts, a drapers in Stratford.

At some point Edith felt the call to be a missionary and underwent training at the BCMS training college in Bristol, probably 1924-26. She served with the BCMS from 1926-1939.

In October 1926, aged 24,  she sailed from London to Hong Kong on the 'Delta' and went from there to the BCMS Foundling/Children’s Home in Lungchow, Gwangxi Province, to assist Miss Elizabeth Lucas who was superintendent there, with about 26 children. The Home had been moved there due to the general unrest in that province because of anti-foreign feeling.  For greater safety 8 of the older girls were sent on to the BCMS station at Haiphong in French Indo-China, where there was a home and a school. 

However, new perils arose in China in the form of the Chinese Civil War and in February 1930 the Red Army took Lungchow and a group of 30 soldiers rounded up four European missionaries including Miss Lucas and Miss Loudwell and took them on an 18-mile march to their headquarters.  From there they were taken to the border of French Indo-China where they were released.  With the consul’s help they made their way to Haiphong and the BCMS Home and School there.  The Lungchow Home continued under its Chinese staff.

In 1930, because of the continuing unrest, Miss Lucas returned to Lungchow with an escort of soldiers and transferred the children firstly to Haiphong, and then to Hong Kong, where the BCMS rented a palatial mansion from a Chinese landlord at 24 Broadwood Road, Happy Valley.

In 1931 the home had 'about 35 girls' and Miss Lucas was joined by Miss Mildred Dibden, and then by nurse Barbara Lomas, who was there to learn Cantonese before going to serve in Ham Chow in Kwangsi province.  As well as being a children's home, the Home was a base for missionaries going up-country.  

In 1933 Miss Loudwell was home on furlough. The rent on the Broadwood Road mansion was put up and so a move was made to the White House at Taipo.  Newly trained from England, Nora Bromley joined the three others, presumably to learn the language before going to the BCMS Home at Haiphong.  Miss Lucas then announced her retirement, which left Mildred Dibden in charge. 

In November 1933  Miss Loudwell returned from furlough to Hong Kong on the ‘Ranchi’ accompanied by new missionary Miss Grace James.  

In 1934 the Home was under Miss Dibden (29), Miss Lomas (25), Miss Loudwell (32), and Miss James (25). Some of the older girls in the home were old enough to be sent out as teachers and nurses to other stations.   

In Dec 1938 Edith Loudwell returned home on the  Ranpura, aged 36, to her parents’ home at 31 Myrtle Road, Brentwood, in Essex, a small Victorian terrace, two-up two-down.  This seems to be the end of her work with the BCMS.

In 1939 the England & Wales Register records the following at 31 Myrtle Road, Brentwood - Thomas Loudwell (63) retired, Head, Gertrude Loudwell (66), and Edith Loudwell (37), now a Clerk in the Army Pay Office.

Edith Loudwell stayed at 31 Myrtle Road until her death in August 1965.  She was aged 63.

Sources:

The First 25 Years of the BCMS  

Ancestry